You might think that Simon Pegg is all smiles and jokes, riding high on a career that seems to be full of success. But the reality a bit more sad than joyous. In a new interview with The Guardian, while promoting the latest MIssion: Impossible movie, Pegg revealed that he has battled alcoholism and depression during what should’ve been his happiest due to his success.
As he tells The Guardian, he not only was appearing as Scotty in the new Star Trek films, he also starred in his first Mission: Impossible film alongside Tom Cruise:
“I would feel like — I’m in a film with Tom Cruise, I’ve got the part of Scotty in ‘Star Trek.’ This should be making me feel happy,” Pegg says. “But it wasn’t.”
“When I watch that film back, I can see where I was then, which was fairly lost, and unhappy, and an alcoholic,” Pegg adds of his “crisis years” — a period of time he kept hidden from the public. “I’m an actor, so I acted … all the f*cking time.”
If we’ve learned anything in the past few weeks with the deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, not everything is as it seems for those who seem to be bathing in success. As Pegg points out, his acting skills helped play a part in keeping it hidden along with some misconceptions about addicts:
“People think junkies and alcoholics are slovenly, unmotivated people. They’re not — they are incredibly organised. They can nip out for a quick shot of whisky and you wouldn’t know they have gone. It’s as if … you are micro-managed by it. But eventually the signs are too obvious. You have taken the dog for one too many walks.”
Pegg credits Alcoholics Anonymous with helping to get out of his destructive ways, also adding that his role in Edgar Wright’s The World’s End was him “kind of telling people” what was going on. It makes a lot of sense looking back, and it’s good he’s worked past it.
(Via The Guardian)
